Author's Note: Whoa, it's been three months since my last part due to the hindrances of college and responsibility (bleh!), but here it is at long last (better late than never!); and I really hope that you people enjoy reading it as much as I did finally writing it (especially after I had to write all those boring papers).
Author's Note 2: The narrartive voice changes from Katie to Sarah after the dashes.
Author's Note 3: The views expressed by the characters do not necessarily reflect those of the author.
Feedback: Greatly appreciated. The more feedback I get, the more I will be motivated to write! So if I don't receive any, I'll take that as a sign that I suck and that I shouldn't write anymore...
PART VII: In the Plainness of Black and White
The day after the incident at the park, it rained. For hours it poured ceaselessly from the depressingly grey sky, and I stood there, unmoving, soaking it all in. My clothes were drenched in the cold rain-water and clung to my body heavily; suddenly the burden to hide myself became greater than I could stand. I fell to my knees and bowed my head for its weighty thoughts that grew and multiplied within their grave environs had grown too onerous for any one to bear. And as the rain, redeeming to the sinner's touch, fell benevolently from the heaven upon my tired body, one thought of the many rose into clarity… I hate outdoor charity events.
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"I heard it rained during your mom's fashion show slash fund-raiser yesterday," I said before taking a seat on Katie's bed. It was ridiculously huge for one person to occupy, especially one as thin as Katie, and was superfluously decorated with every adornment imaginable – from the purest white goose down pillows and sheets of the finest imported Parisian linen to the meticulously hand-embroidered boudoir shams and the ruffled echelle, hemstitched pettiskirt as lavish and unnecessary as it sounds. However, I must admit, my bed is proudly larger and greatly more superfluous.
"Yeah," sighed Katie as she lay across the bed, fully extended, yet not even her feet dangled off the edge. She was sketching in her leather-bound drawing book, which was a common daily activity of hers, and was so engulfed in the act during our conversation that she never looked up once, not even while she spoke.
"Another one of her attempts to appear sane and ubiquitously charitable that went down the proverbial drain," added Katie who took great pleasure in this statement.
"What was it called again?" I asked, bleakly remembering that it was a title of ill-used alliteration often attached to well-meant functions that undoubtedly attracted unwanted grievances.
"Prada in the Park for Paraplegic People with Postpartum Psychosis," replied Katie amazingly in one breath with neither hesitation nor pause in her action.
"God…That must've been fun," I sarcastically remarked with intentions of sympathy.
"Oh, it was," said Katie with genuine contentment, regret not present in her voice. "Especially when my mother found out that I ruined an $8,000 silk chiffon Prada evening gown on loan. She had a conniption fit complete with spastic Tourettes."
Katie devilishly grinned at the reminiscence of this self-gratifying image. It was the kind that would have curled at the ends, like the Grinch's before he attempted to steal Christmas, had she been a cartoon character. I knew, internally Katie was patting herself on the back; for the one thing that she lived for, besides seducing for sport, was torturing her mother. Katie hated her mother almost as much as she loved herself, which is a bit of a relief; because if Katie had hated her mother exactly as much as she loved herself, her mother would be dead by now.
"Sorry I missed it," I said, regretting that I had passed on a chance to witness the laughable-sounding image.
"Mmhm," said Katie, distracted. She was still intensely focused on her drawing, which she now took an eraser to in order to gently remove the stray marks that dared to defy her ideal vision. I could not clearly see exactly what she was depicting because I was far at the side of her; and I had not the courage to peer over her shoulder for fear of her leaving due to my invasion of the artist's understood privacy between her and her unfinished work. So, instead, I opted for a tangent that we both would be interested in going off on.
"So how's progress going with Mrs. Jesus?"
"What do you mean?" asked Katie, still furiously sketching upon the disappearing white of her paper.
"Fuck her yet?"
Instantly the point of Katie's pencil broke.
"I'm working on it."
Katie assessed the tip of her pencil. Deeming it useless, she discarded the barely-used instrument towards the direction of the wastebasket, not caring if it reached its proper destination or not. Katie did not own a sharpener; for who needs a sharpener when you have hundreds of replacements on hand?
"Loser," I said teasingly to Katie as she got up from her bed.
She walked to the bureau at the other side of the room to fetch another one of her easily expendable, highly priced Parisian drawing pencils kept in a delicately white wooden box on the top left-hand shelf; but not before she made sure to close her drawing book so that wandering eyes would be unable to 'accidentally' stumble upon her incomplete expression of her inner soul.
"Blow me," reviled Katie as she carefully selected the one best of the many pencils at her disposal, which were all highly adequate, to carelessly use for her selfish wants.
"Oh, you charmer, you always know what to say to make a girl feel loved," I teased with a melodramatic hand on my heart. "How ever did dear Miss Seventeen Magazine manage to keep her pants on?"
"Oh…" began Katie as she closed the white box and walked back to her bed. "I bet her indestructible chastity belt forged from titanium steel helped to hold it up, along with the hands of God."
I smirked at the mental image that Katie's comment brought to my depraved mind.
"Oh, so that's why Bush is still president," I mused. "God was so busy with his hands wrapped around the waist of a 16 year old girl; he forgot to give the people of Ohio brains."
Katie snickered at my wry derision before opening her drawing book once again.
"So I presume your bullshit 'heal the world' act didn't pan out the way you wanted it to," I said as I picked up the book on Katie's bedside table. The title read Of Human Bondage by W. Somerset Maugham.
"No. She cried."
"She cried?!" I ejaculated with both amusement and surprise. "Jesus, Katie, you're losing your touch. Usually the girl cries after you fuck her."
"Shut up! I told you I'm working on it," said Katie defensively. "It's just that some asshole told Jessie about my past indiscretions and –"
"And her poor innocent wittle heart couldn't take it? Aww," I teased in a mocking baby-voice.
"You sound like Elmer Fudd," derided Katie.
Shocked at my being compared to a dim-witted dupe with a lightbulb head, I hurled the 565 paged text at Katie's head but unfortunately missed; and it landed on the floor with a loud thud.
"Whoa!" exclaimed Katie in reaction to her near brush with death. "You do not use good literature as a weapon," she scolded with a shaking finger. "Especially not a hardcover one! You could've killed me!"
Katie got up to retrieve the discarded book.
"Couldn't you have at least used Paris Hilton's book?" suggested Katie as she placed the novel into a bookcase adjacent to the bureau. "It's not as thick and it's a lot less death-inducing… Wait. I take that back."
Katie smiled in reflection of her joke before bringing up another subject.
"Speaking of witless socialites," she began, jumping back onto the bed. "How are things with Grace?"
"Great," I boasted, proudly sitting up straight with an upturned nose. "I introduced her to this guy on Saturday, and she hasn't shut up about him since – not that that's necessarily great – but if I get my way, which I always do… 99 percent of the time, Gavin will find out that his Virgin Manning is tainted goods and his poor elitist heart will be broken. Boo-hoo."
"And then who will he turn to for consolation?" asked Katie with mock sympathy and a cute, melodramatic pout.
I smiled wickedly at the image of Gavin crawling back to me on his hands and knees upon sharp stones and jagged shards of glass.
"Then I'll be the one to dump the bastard," I said with malicious relish and fervent anticipation.
"Now point your fingers together and say 'Excellent,'" mocked Katie before she sprawled across the wide bed once more.
"Haha…" I replied, not amused. "What's with you lately?"
"What do you mean?" asked Katie, propping her head up with her elbow.
"I don't know…" I said, not able to find the words to explain it. "Your newly developed sense of humor; how you're mysteriously lacking that fifteen foot pole up your ass…"
"Hey!" yelled Katie, seemingly enraged. "I did not have a fifteen foot pole up my ass! You're exaggerating… It was two, at the most."
"See; that's what I'm talking about," I pointed out, bewildered by Katie's present demeanor.
Then I finally saw the unfamiliar smile upon Katie's lips that I had failed to see before. It was absent of her usual malevolent charm that devilishly attracted others to her. Instead, it radiated with something incomprehensible – a blinding brilliance filled with detestable candor; purity vilely unstained. It was then that I discovered the unwanted truth that I had subconsciously blinded myself from before.
"She's really getting to you, isn't she?"
"Who?"
"Oh, c'mon…" I said, not believing Katie could be this unaware.
"Don't 'oh c'mon' me. Tell me who?" pleaded Katie, with growing desperation in her voice.
"Jessie!" I finally blurted out, exasperated by Katie's current stupidity.
"Jessie?!" asked Katie with a snicker of disbelief, supposing that my remark was in jest.
"Yes! Jessie!" I angrily shouted her name a second time. I hated saying her name. The mere sound of it offended me. "The girl is changing you, and you don't even realize it…"
Katie stared at me for a while, taking time to deeply consider the words that I had said. She studied the expression of my solemn eyes and found the gravity in them. Not satisfied with what I had, she turned away.
"Don't be ridiculous," said Katie, walking over to her bureau once again. She leant forward on the edge, grasping it tightly.
"What's ridiculous, dear Kathryn, is you," I countered. "You're obviously infatuated with her!"
"I am not infatuated with her," denied Katie, sounding as if she was trying to convince herself more than me.
"Oh?" I reasoned, unconvinced. "Then why would you agree to debase yourself by picking up other people's garbage for charity?"
"Because…" began Katie as she turned from the bureau with a failingly reassuring smile. "It was merely tact; a stratagem for me to get closer to Jessie, so I can win our bet."
"Oh, okay… So, acting like a bumbling idiot, was that a part of your plan too?"
"Well…I-I was just…" stuttered Katie, sickeningly unable to explain herself.
"Y-you were just what?" I flew from the bed and walked towards Katie impassionedly. "God, I can't believe it… Kathryn Singer, the master of rhetoric and lies, brought down by Miss Mary Sunshine! The girl merely looks at you, and you become this fool who dribbles and drones…"
"Shut up," demanded Katie, with intense fury building within.
"Admit it!" I demanded with seething anger. "Jessie asked you to help her do charity work at the park, and you agreed to help, not because you wanted to win our bet, but because the girl has got you whipped!"
"SHUT UP!"
Incensed, Katie grabbed me by my shoulders and hurled me unto the wall with such great force that the sound of the collision echoed throughout the room. Katie stormed towards me with fiery malice in her eyes and pinned me hard against the wall. For the first time, I was actually terrified.
"She means nothing to me!" roared Katie, looking me feverishly in the eyes. And then with heated ardor she kissed me with searing lips and burned my doubt to ashes.
"Nothing has changed…" she whispered, her breath still hot with anger. "Nothing."
Katie then blazed to the exit and slammed the door shut with a thunderous clap, leaving me to stand alone with her kiss still branded upon my lips.
I fell to my knees, overwhelmed by Katie's force, which still largely hung about the room. It was at that time, when I was catching my breath, that I saw, only a few feet away, Katie's forgotten drawing book. In her angered rush, she had carelessly left it open, unintentionally welcoming others to peer into her soul. So with ill curiosity, that infects the mind like a plague, I accepted the open invitation. But as I stood over the drawing book, I became riddled with regret. For before my self I saw, in the plainness of black and white, a portrait of a girl, whose name I'd hate to say.
